Origins
by Molten-Ashes
Summary: Who says it's only humans that are reincarnated?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R!

(I was scouring TF Wiki like the nerd I am, trying to get information on Transformers: Prime and I discovered that Josh Keaton voices Jack Darby and Arcee's murdered partner Tailgate. Brain suddenly went something like this: Jack Darby + Tailgate = same voice actor which obviously means: Reincarnation!... yeah. I don't get it either... Anyway, a big thanks to Star Fata for beta reading and sorting out my crummy grammar!)

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><p>The Spark had been floating around in the depths of space for nearly four vorns. Twisting and twirling through the stars, as it had since the frame that had once hosted it had died upon a giant planet, far from its current place in the cosmos. The Spark had a job to do and it had been delivered here by a messenger of Primus, orbiting a small planet covered in blue: shades of green, brown, red and yellow crossing the landmasses that peaked from the water.<p>

_Is it time yet?_ The Spark asked eagerly, the blob of light winking and flaring in excitement as it felt a celestial nudge, descending to the planet's surface in a powerful flash of light that would later be passed off as an unexpected solar flare.

Disorientated, the Spark bobbed in a startled circle beside a trough of organic flowers hanging from the seventh story of a hospital window listening to the cries of a woman in labour. The Spark, unseen, glittered as it peered through the leaves and petals into the room where a woman was struggling to bring a child into the world.

"Come on June," one of the Midwives smiled at the woman currently groaning in pain, leaning back into the bed as her husband winced at the death grip on his fingers. "Just a little more."

"Spark of the Cybertronian. Designation: Tailgate." A deep voice rumbled, unheard to everything but the hesitating Spark. "Come, your place is not here."

"Primus," the Spark chirred fearfully at the all-powerful being that had addressed him, still fixated on the woman beyond the window. "Please, let me see this."

"Very well." The God of the Transformer's rumbled, withdrawing from the Spark's consciousness to watch from his avatar's optics floating in plain sight, though never seen by those that lived on this world.

"One last push!" the Spark known once as Tailgate heard, zipping back to its viewing spot just a child was birthed in a mess of fluids and blood.

The child didn't cry as the midwife cut the cord attaching it to the mother, announcing it was a boy as the child gave a strangled wheeze. Everything paused for a split second, before the midwife was snapping orders.

"Quick! Get his airway cleared, Flo hook him up to a life monitor!"

"The child will not survive." Primus said invading the Spark's thoughts once more as it swayed to and fro in agitation. "Such is the way this world works."

"But it hasn't lived yet!" the distraught ball of light protested, flaring in defiance. "Primus! Please! Let the mechling live!"

"I cannot save it." Primus said a soothing tendril of holy energy caressing the Spark gently, watching in growing helplessness as the monitor now attached to the child flat lined, doctors scurrying wildly around it as the mother sobbed in horror, turning to hide her face in her husband's chest.

"Then I shall save it!" The Spark declared recklessly, diving forward through the glass window. Before Primus could stop him, the Spark was diving into the child's open mouth, the energy and light of the spirit once known as Tailgate, dissipating into every individual cell and blood vessel of the body of the fragile human Sparkling.

The child's pulse quickened and a loud wail rent through the room as Primus' avatar smiled proudly from his place outside the window, before departing into the cosmos once more, back to his frame hanging in the stars. Tailgate had made his choice, he was human now.

_I am proud of you, youngling._

**_==Hours later==_**

"What'll you call him?" The midwife asked softly as June Darby finally got to hold her son after all bewildered doctors had checked him over, the baby yawned up his parents, nestling into his mother's bosom with a sigh that seemed far too weary for one barely a day old.

"Jackson," Mrs. Darby said with a smile kissing the fuzz upon her sons head. "Jackson Darby."

Within the child's heart, shielded by its muscle walls, the glimmer of a Cybertronian spark pulsed.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers!

Please R&R

(This actually has a plot now! Enjoy!)

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><p>"Arcee to Delta Team, requesting rendezvous coordinates. Do you copy?" A familiar femme's voice lanced through the static his Communication Link had acquired after a lucky shot from a sniper nearly blew his helm off, he really would have to tell his partner about that one later, it was amusing to see her fuss over their injuries. Waving to the rest of the team to go onwards without him, he patched through to the missing member of their group.<p>

"Arcee, you lost again?" he teased back down the line, "You're sense of direction could use some improvement."

"So could your aim Tailgate." She replied, the trace of amusement in her vocaliser making him give a chuckle of his own, "If you tagged that sniper back at the artillery depot, I wouldn't have had to break rank and engage the enemy hand to hand."

Looking about his position from the side of the secluded building that the Delta Team had left him waiting on Arcee, he warily checked around him for more Decepticon troops, it had gone oddly, and creepily silent. Deciding to keep his playful attitude he quickly quipped back at his partner. "By the sounds of things, I'm guessing you came out ahead?"

"Try waiting up for me next time and I'll give you the blow by blow." The dark blue femme replied as he loitered in the shadow of the building that had clearly seen better orns. "What's your position?"

"About half a click from the Depot, due north," Tailgate reeled off, waving to another scattered member of Delta Team as he tried to rendezvous with the main group which was, by now, five breems out of the area back to base and pointing the mech in the right direction. It was only his stubborn attitude that made the commander allow him to wait for Arcee as it was, plus a little blackmailing helped as well, no matter how many times Arcee had told him not to do it. "Think you can find it partner?"

"Trust me Tailgate." She replied smugly, "My navigation abilities are…" A sudden cry from Arcee on her end of the line made him jump in fright, the femme's voice being replaced by muffled cries and a fierce amount of static that made him cringe.

"Arcee?" he called down the link, lifting a servo up to his helm and pressing his communication link, changing Comm channels to try and get a better signal. "Arcee this really isn't time to be fooling around. The commander will have my aft if we're not back soon."

As he kept trying to hail his partner, he was unaware of two Decepticons clambering down the old walls of the building and it was only the sound and luminescence of a round of weapons fire above him that allowed the oblivious Tailgate to take notice of the leering shadows above him. "Frag." He cursed, spinning on his pede and grabbing his rifle, aiming upwards towards where the two shadows allegedly originated.

Nothing was there but fragments of the building's wall, peeled back in twisted shapes. "Great, Tailgate," he grumbled to himself as he re-magnetised his rifle back to his backstrut and began to trace Arcee's Communication Link frequency to her position, "Jumping at shadows again." Shuffling to peer around the corner, he never realised that one of the two Decepticon's had lunged for his main energon line, sending him into stasis lock as his processor foggily registered the abnormal pressure on his neck that was buried under his surprise of suddenly being grabbed…

_**===Two Orns Later===**_

"Urgh… that must have been some party…" he muttered to himself as he rebooted, his golden optics onlining with a brief flicker as they became flooded with error messages, which startlingly included the information that his frame had acquired damage he couldn't remember receiving. "Either that or a bomb dropped on my position…" he concluded as he gazed about what appeared to be a grimy cell, energon coating the walls in a gruesome décor that only a crazy megalomaniac would love.

As he tried to heave himself up into a sitting position, he found his wrists encased in stasis cuffs, much to his annoyance and horror as he realised he was lying next to another mech that was slowly going grey from lack of energon, the blue optics of the mech pleading with Tailgate to put him out of his misery.

"Oh Primus." He swore, shuffling back, jumping when his back hit the bloodied wall with an audible clang that made him wince.

"Get a good look Autobot." The Decepticon guard sneered into the cell, "It's your future there."

Scowling at the leering mech outside of the cell, Tailgate shifted and pushed himself up to sit with his back against the wall, raising his captured servo's to scratch an itchy static build on the side of his helm, belatedly realising as he searched for the static build up that his Internal Communication Unit had been ripped out and he yelped in pain as his fingers collided with the sensitive, jagged metal.

Laughing at his captive's misfortune, the Decepticon retreated back into the Guard office where another guard was swigging High Grade drunkenly at a Communication's Consol.

"Fraggers," Tailgate grumbled, resting his helm back against the wall, missing the familiar weight of his rifle that usually clung to his back, and missing his partner's quips that would brighten his mood, "Well, wherever you are Arcee, I hope you're doing better than I am…"

_**===Three Orns Later=== **_

Reduced to a dented shell of a mech, Tailgate could only groan as a guard nudged him with a pede from his collapsed heap to make sure he was still alive, "Stop it," he slurred, his vocaliser crackling with static, "Frag off."

"He's still got some fight in him." Snickered the guard who would often take to beating the prisoners of the dark cells when he was drunk or simply in the mood. "But it serves you right for hacking the mainframe and sending out a distress signal."

"Bite me." Tailgate bit back, though it only came out as a moan of pain.

"Heh," he Decepticon snickered, "Good thing Arachnid is going to do away with you. Why did we even need him anyway?" the purple mech asked turning to his watching companion.

"Apparently Arachnid is having a hard time getting the femme to talk. She and her little minions found the sniper chatting with her through a comm. when they caught her." The other replied as their own links chimed and a summoning voice, filled with all things related to creepy and nasty rang out.

"Bring the Sniper to me."

Dazedly, he couldn't really remember what happened next. He was dragged by the arms through some corridors, some filled with tortured screams, some silent as his pedes scraped along the floor, echoing his groans of pain.

They stopped at a door as a guard typed in his pass codes, letting their captive rest on his aching knee joints between them before they dragged him in with a jerk, his processor's vaguely registering a familiar voice almost asking his designation, "Tailgate?"

"What did you do to him?"

The conversation between the two femmes continued, randomly spinning around his processor as he found the floor mildly fascinating through his pain as they hung him up like a prized catch.

"No! Please!" the tied up femme, Arcee, his partner, if his processor remembered correctly, was becoming frantic as the slow taps of the spider femme's pedes came closer to him, the swish of a transformation and a shriek of metal as something was poised to strike.

_That can't be good_. His rational side of his processor thought at time seemed to fade from his thoughts, while his survival instincts seemed to lie down and accept whatever was coming as inevitability.

A piercing sensation, followed by a hot stab of pain made him choke on the scream as a voice… his beloved partner's voice…. cried out his name in horror as everything became black and free of pain.

_**=== Millennia Later= Earth= Nevada= Jack's Room=== **_

A human teenager, known as Jackson Darby, but Jack to his friends, awoke with a jerk, his heart hammering in fright as his nightmare quickly faded into the obscurity of his subconscious leaving him terrified and confused in the cool desert night.

Within his organic heart, the sleeping spark of a mech named Tailgate shuddered in memory…


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(Plot Bunny bit me... Enjoy!)

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><p>Frustrated, feeling violent and on a losing streak, Arachnid wasn't the happiest femme in the universe. But luckily, she still had a fraction of her collection that hadn't been scattered about the forest she had landed in. Burrowing down into her improvised museum, she revelled in the power she felt at having been the slayer of such beasts whose heads hung in preserver fluid. She scuttled forward past the remaining heads to a small alcove that housed a giant cocoon of charred webbing.<p>

"At least you're still safe." She said to her finest prey, stroking the webbing that shielded the large, dead thing from view, "You earned me a little hunter of my own you know." She said conversationally digging her claws into the web and raking giant furrows in the deep cocoon trying to reveal her preserved prize. "Arcee will be most pleased to see you…"

The dented servo of a Cybertronian flopped from the folds; white and ruby paint chipped and faded, the plating grey beneath the coloured paint. The servo was soon followed by the rest of the frame clanging to the ground at Arachnids pedes as she knelt beside it and stroked the helm like a mother would an upset child.

"You were the last Cybertronian I killed before I left to started my Collection." She smiled to the helm, its dull lifeless golden optics staring up unseeing to the ceiling of her burrow, "I can't really remember your name." the spider cooed to the corpse, her clawed fingers raking away the ancient paint with ease, "I recall Arcee screamed it so sweetly when I speared you through the spark… your name _is_ Tailgate isn't it?" she asked the corpse as she patted her servo over the killing wound, the frayed metal of the chest dull and fragile.

Never receiving an answer from the frame of a shattered mech named Tailgate, she cackled to the Trophies in her burrow as it shook when something passed overhead and her Communication Link flared into life. "Arachnid," the gravelly voice of an old human friend rumbled through her audio's "Why did you call me here?"

"Ah, Silas." She purred happily still petting the dead Cybertronian's helm in her lap. "I have a proposition for you my dear."

"Go on." The Leader of M.E.C.H replied cautiously and Arachnid cackled as she imagined his wary frown.

"You and I both want revenge on the Autobots for our failures, specifically Arcee." Arachnid pointed out, her fingers clutching the helm and its body harder as if it would disappear from her grasp if she let it go. "And I have the key to bring her down…"

_**===Jack's Room=== **_

"I hate waking up with a headache." Jackson moaned into his pillow that beautiful desert morning, the sun beaming light straight into his eyes from the window, his chest also stung as well in a mild case of heartburn.

"Jack if you're not up in ten minute's you'll be late for school!" his mother's voice pierced the throbbing fog of pain that had taken up residence in his head and chest.

Groaning, Jackson Darby rolled from his bed grabbing for the usual headache pills that took up residence at his bedside table near his clock.

Headaches had been happening a lot recently, though they had started after his second encounter with Arcee's bitter rival, the spider like femme known as Arachnid who had slain one of the motorcycles partners. The headaches began after every restless dream, where he would recall echoes of laughter, blaster shots or pain.

He sighed as he got dressed; his aches and pains disappearing with the medicine as he hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder.

"Hey Arcee." He greeted the motorcycle femme that sat brooding in her alternate mode.

"Hello Jack." The femme replied, amusement lacing her tone as he scrubbed at his face, mentally bemoaning the last day of classes before the summer vacation officially began. "Really for school?"

"I wish I could just skip it like Miko tries to." Jack grumbled as he mounted the motorcycle, the white garage door rising with its usual creak and rattle as Arcee revved her engine.

"No, chance." The femme chuckled, "Hang on tight."

"You worry too much, partner." Jack grinned strapping on his helmet as Arcee's form gave an odd little wince as he mentioned that tabooed word when they left his driveway.

_**===The Spark=== **_

Tailgate dreamed silently, his spark, his soul pulsing in time with his boy's organic heart. A familiar presence was with his boy, he could taste the pulses of her soul that touched his own. But it was tainted, shattered and stoked in the fires of sorrow.

Partner.

That was her, the dreaming spark whispered to itself…

Partner…


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers

Please R&R

(With a bad internet connection and nothing to do since there is snow and it is minus something degrees outside the caravan I'm in for the weekend, what do I do to fill in the daylight hours? Write. A lot... my fingers are in pain...

Anyway, I hope you like this chapter! Contains some hinted Arcee X Tailgate.)

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><p><em><strong>===Earth= M.E.C.H Headquarters===<strong>_

Silas smiled as Arachnid stood by him watching his men shuffle around the corpse laid out on the gurney, its systems gradually being catalogued as the M.E.C.H scientists ordered the modifications he requested to be fitted carefully across the frame.

"You are pleased with the specimen?" Arachnid asked cautiously, her venomous purple optics narrowed as a careless human kicked the laid out frame in annoyance. Faster than he could shout a reprimand, the man's lifeblood spattered against the nearest wall, the spider like femme looming over the speared organic body as she addressed the rest of the humans present. "Be careful with my possessions." She purred silkily, before shrugging off the skewered body, running her acidic talons along the arm of the dead Cybertronian frame almost affectionately as she came to stand by Silas once more.

"I am very pleased, it is nearly a whole Cybertronian." He commented casually, as if the blatant murder of one of his minions hadn't occurred, the others resuming their tasks. "The only thing missing is the spark."

"And a few weapons." Arachnid said civilly, checking the back of her servo like a human woman would her newly painted nails. "They were lost millennia ago I'm afraid."

"The knowledge we have taken from its processor is incredible." Silas continued as the spider femme leaned closer, ignoring the shiver that ran up his spine at the low hiss she let out of her vents in a casual intake. "There is quite a lot about weapons schematics."

"Tailgate often liked to make his own weapons." Arachnid agreed eyeing her prize as the computer managed to crack the sequence the processor had used for sealing the frame's chest plates, the dented, pierced armour pushing open and out with a low hiss of pressurised air. "His processor was an interesting thing to hack."

Humming with a frown Silas tapped a rhythm on the railing as more men crowded the intriguing Cybertronian spark chamber, dull without a spark to illuminate its brilliance, the box fashioned of a type of crystal that no earth mineral could replicate. Arachnid smiled lecherously beside him, almost taunting him, reminding him that she would only help as much as she wanted to. Truthfully, Silas rather wished it was her strapped down and cut open rather than the mysterious deactivated Cybertronian she had appeared with, offering no explanation as to how she had received it other than declaring it was a key part of their plan to eradicate the Autobots.

"Are you going to tell us how to get in?" he asked as the crystal broke their strongest drills, wearing down the metal instead of yielding and shattering like normal crystal should have done.

"No." the spider smiled like the devil, her horned helm glinting in the lighting of the warehouse they operated in. "Think of this as a learning curve for you humans."

His frown morphed promptly into a scowl, turning on the infuriating femme that leered at him, all fangs and bright purple optics. "Need I remind you that it was you that wanted to use this… thing in our plan."

"Indeed." The femme smiled charmingly back, her expression holding an underline of loathing and hidden agenda. "However dear Silas, it is my plan you are currently trying to weasel your way into."

As he made to snarl back at her to keep her mouth shut (and probably get killed in return) a scientist scampered up to him with an official looking air, shoving his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he announced his reason for being before them. "We are ready to adorn the Control Helmet."

Grunting with an annoyed air, Silas nodded to the section of technicians sitting at the group of monitors that controlled a claw like structure, much like the ones you saw in carnivals, that held a complex looking visored helmet that began to descend, the strapped down body shifting as the gurney folded upwards, propelling the body into a sitting position as the helm fastened, hissing as it clamped itself to the head of the dead Cybertonian.

"Boot up sequence activating." The computers droned as the distinct humming of electrical power, zipping along the wires connected to the body.

"Beware Arcee, the past is coming back to haunt you..." Arachnid muttered as the visor of the helmet shielding dead gold optics flared on a blood red, the half repaired chest plates closing over an empty spark chamber, the faceplates of a dead mech twisting into a vile sneer as Silas laughed at their success.

_**===Cybertron= Millennia ago=== **_

_**==Arcee==**_

"Tailgate, if you dare try to make me dance at this party you're going to get punched." Arcee snapped as the excitable sniper greeted an already mildly drunk Cliffjumper with an enthusiastic high five when they arrived slightly late to the party.

"Aww, come on Arcee," the white swirled mech grinned, his golden optics flashing in good humour as she made her way sulkily to a quiet corner, "I heard from Cliff that you had some good moves on the dance floor."

"Cliffjumper talks absolute slag." She sniffed as Tailgate grabbed two cubes from a passing overcharged mech and shoved a cube into her servos as he waved to an exasperated Bumblebee currently trying to pull Cliffjumper away from the femmes he was harassing. "Anyway what made you come to this party? Don't you have weapons to be designing and making?"

"Chromia got into the Mech Barracks and locked me out of my room." The ruby mech sulked as Arcee gave a chuckle, watching her partner take a long swig of his energon before making a disgusted face and passing it to an overcharged femme stumbling by. "High Grade tastes horrible."

"Don't let Chromia hear you say that." Arcee giggled taking a sip of her own cube before swirling it in her grasp. "She'll think the world is ending."

"Aww, look at you two lovebirds!" Chromia slurred, popping up beside Arcee as Cliffjumper and Bumblebee came over to slouch by Tailgate and engaged him in conversation.

"Chromia. You're Overcharged." Arcee said with a smirk as the lighter blue femme gave her a dazzling smile.

"Ironhide convinced me to try the Twin's Homebrewed stuff." The cannon obsessed femme snickered, waving the dark violet cube in front of Arcee's faceplate as she sipped her own light pink one. "It's fragging good! So… You and Tailgate still not interfacing yet?"

"Chromia!" Arcee flushed in embarrassment as Tailgate was dragged across the room by Cliffjumper, the latter betting the white patterned mech an impossible amount of credits he couldn't get a femme to dance with him.

"Oh stop being a prude." Chromia snorted in amusement. "I still don't know why you haven't jumped his circuits."

"Chromia." Arcee warned, rolling her optics as she spotted Tailgate suddenly gain that wicked plotting smile he normally got when he knew he had won an argument and darted back across the packed dance floor towards them.

"Come on Arcee." Tailgate grinned grabbing her wrist and dragging her from her seat onto the dance floor, "Cliffjumper agreed to give me his weapon schematics and his holo-boxset of 'Kitchen Sinks' if I can get you to dance with me."

"Fine. But only because I like 'Kitchen Sinks'," She huffed, her faceplate flushing with energon when a slow romance song came on the speakers and the golden opticked Tailgate chuckled, pulling her close into his warm embrace as they swayed on the dance floor.

_**===Earth= Present Day= Autobot Base=== **_

"Come on Arcee! You've got to come be referee!" a familiar voice broke her out of her daydream, making her jump. She smiled when she saw Jack standing before with a grin looking up at her with an almost familiar twinkle in his eyes. "Bumblebee and Bulkhead are going to have a race!"


End file.
